Henry III Fine Rolls: Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Gloucester Castle’

This week was chiefly remarkable for Henry III’s extraordinary move from Windsor to the Tower of London and back. According to the fine rolls, Henry witnessed letters at Windsor on Saturday 20 August. Yet a letter on the close rolls has him attesting on the same day at the Tower of London. Indeed it was from there that he sent ten foot archers to Matthias Bezill at Gloucester castle. Evidently he had heard of Bezill’s violent quarrel with the rival sheriff, William de Tracy, and felt he needed reinforcements. (See the blog for 24-30 July). Henry seems, therefore, to have travelled from Windsor to the Tower in the course of 20 August. Most probably he made the journey by boat. Just how long he stayed at the Tower is unclear because the dating clauses of royal letters become contradictory, testimony perhaps to the general confusion. A letter on the fine rolls has Henry still at the Tower on 23 August. Yet one on the close rolls places him back at Windsor on the twenty-second. Certainly he was at Windsor from the twenty-fourth onwards.

Just why Henry made this dash to the Tower is unclear. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that he felt the growth of the insurgency around Windsor made it unsafe. The last thing he wanted was to face a siege there. This then was a flight rather like that from from Winchester to the Tower back in June (see the blog for 12-18 June). After a few days, Henry returned to Windsor having been re-assured of the situation. He was more comfortable there than in his confined quarters at the Tower. He could also assert more of a presence than bottled up in the capital. The hypothesis that Henry was losing control of the area near Windsor is supported by some strands of evidence. It was from 24 August that his sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Alexander of Hampden, received nothing from the issues of the county ‘because of the disturbance’, according to his later testimony. The fine rolls are also interesting. Below the letter attested on 20 August come twelve fines for writs to initiate or further the common law legal proceedings. The fine rolls record, as was usual, omits the date of the writs, but they were presumably issued around 20 August. Not one concerned counties in the circle around Windsor. Henry was now girding himself for war, although he still hoped to avoid it. On 22 August, he sent letters to various foreign lords asking them to be ready to send him a total of 300 knights and the same number of serjeants or archers. These were to be despatched once Henry sent a further request. As he explained, ‘certain of our magnates have for sometime been rebels, and unless they speedily think again, we will have to take appropriate measures’.

When the storm broke around the King’s head in 1258, the Barons in their Petition of that May asked that all royal castles including those adjoining harbours from which ships sail, should be committed to the custody of men born in England and that no women shall be disparaged by being married to ‘men who are not true-born Englishmen’. The experience of the King’s alien curiales varied. As a result of the Provisions of Oxford of June/July, John de Plessis, far from being removed, was, by a vote of the Barons, appointed to the group of four who would chose the King’s Council. In addition he was to hold Devizes castle. Mathias Bezill was retained as Constable of Gloucester but Imbert Pugeys was removed from the Tower of London.

A Tourangeau, Mathias Bezill benefited during his countryman, Peter des Roche’s ascendancy. Bezill was the nephew of one of the Chanceaux clan which was probably related to Engelard de Cigogné and, like him, was banned by chapter fifty of Magna Carta. Bezill was first mentioned in 1232, during the des Roches dominance, when he was given custody of the lands of two of the supporters of the rebel, Richard Marshal and he received his first royal patronage in the following January and witnessed a royal charter in June. By 1258 he had gained lands in Devon, Gloucestershire, Surrey and Wiltshire and had married a wealthy widow. More importantly, in 1240, he was made Marshal of the Queen’s household and, by 1251, he was constable of Gloucester. In 1254, he became the Queen’s Steward.

Although Bezill was not disadvantaged by the Provisions, he suffered in the aftermath as a result of the special eyre set up under the supervision of the Justiciar, Hugh Bigod. In September 1258, Bezill was ordered to be imprisoned when a jury refused to overturn his conviction for reducing a free tenant to serfdom.This potential imprisonment at this time was an indication of the ebbing of the power of alien courtiers around the King.

1261 saw Henry III overthrowing the Provisions of Oxford and recovering of royal power. He replaced sheriffs with those he could trust; John de Plessis became sheriff of Leicestershire and Warwick whilst in July Mathias Bezill added the shrievalty of Gloucestershire to his castellany of Gloucester castle.

Whereas Plessis experienced no problems, there was a spectacular and violent reaction to Bezill’s appointment. The county gentry of Gloucestershire elected one of their own men, William de Tracy, as sheriff. With a strong force, Bezill seized Tracy at a meeting of the county court, had him beaten, dragged through the mire and imprisoned in Gloucester castle.

Although Robert of Gloucester referred to a popular election, David Carpenter has suggested that Tracy was, in fact, a member of the entourage of the Earl of Gloucester. Although the evidence he relied on dates from 1267, refers back to 1265 and is about a later Earl, it does carry some weight as a 1259 patent roll entry refers to Oliver de Tracy, who was possibly William’s brother, as the nephew of the Earl in 1259.

These events show that Bezill was still perceived as a foreigner even though he had been in England for thirty years, had been associated with Gloucester castle for twelve years, had been accepted as constable by the Barons in 1258, had held lands in Gloucestershire, was married to an Englishwoman and had children born in England. That Bezill identified with Gloucestershire is demonstrated by his funding on an obit at Gloucester Abbey. Robert of Gloucester drew particular attention to the French origins of Bezill and the St Alban’s Continuator also referred to Bezill’s’ alien origin.

But an item in a wardrobe account of the mid 1250’s found by Ben Wild may throw a new light on these events. One reading of this entry is that Bezill paid ten marks to have the sheriff of Gloucester moved. If so, why? Bezill had been Constable of Gloucester since 1251. William de Lasborough, who was sheriff in April 1255, was replaced in 1257 by Henry de Penbroke.

However, the List of Sheriffs records Bezill, as sheriff, on 10 January 1256 but there is no supporting evidence. The List states that he did not account at the Exchequer. Perhaps this statement is based on a Patent Roll entry which can be read as referring to Bezill’s keeping Gloucester castle but not the county. Lasborough is in the parish of Westonbirt. Bezill held lands at Sherston, about two miles away, from 1240 and at Didmarton, also about two miles way, from before 1260. Perhaps Bezill was objecting to Lasborough as either a hindrance to his position as Constable or it was a neighbour dispute or both. But if he did pay to have Lasborough removed, why was he only prepared, or expected, to pay only ten marks? So if Bezill had had a brush with a locally based sheriff in the 1250’s, this might be a further reason for local hostility to him in the 1260’s.

Whatever was the motive for the local gentry’s hostility to Bezill in 1261, they remembered his actions and took violent revenge in 1263.

It is not surprising that Henry III sent for Elias Rabayn (see ‘Elyas de Rabayne’ in Henry III Fine Rolls Blog, Sunday 24 April to Saturday 30 April 1261). Like all his fellow aliens, Rabayn, whilst much criticised by the English and their chroniclers, maintained a scrupulous loyalty to the King. It is ironic that the only alien who betrayed him was the one to whom he had been most generous, Simon de Montfort.

The thirteenth century saw several waves of aliens coming to serve the English kings. They came from Normandy, Touraine, Poitou, Savoy and even Germany. The last wave, who arrived before the reform period, was that of the Poitevins. They came to England in 1247, when the Lusignans arrived to be welcomed by their generous half-brother, Henry III. Rabayn, probably from the Isle of Oléron, was first noted in English records in 1247. He married an heiress and was Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in 1251 as well as Constable of Corfe and Sherborne. Corfe was a vital castle which had once been the home of King John’s treasure and was still used for the imprisonment of important captives. Rabayn retained Corfe when he was replaced as sheriff in 1255. It was a gift of 500 marks’ worth of land to Rabayn that infuriated Matthew Paris in 1252. He wrote that, whilst the King had refused to allow his own subjects to pay their debts in installments, he had nevertheless rewarded the Poitevin.

When the storm broke around the King’s head in 1258, the Barons in their Petition of that May asked that all royal castles including those adjoining harbours from which ships sailed, should be committed to the custody of men born in England and that no women should be disparaged by being married to ‘men who are not true-born Englishmen’. As a result of the Provisions of Oxford of June/July, the Norman, John de Plessis, far from being removed, was appointed to the group of four who would chose the King’s Council, by a vote of the Barons. In addition he was to hold Devizes castle. Mathias Bezill was retained as Constable of Gloucester but Imbert Pugeys was removed from the Tower of London. Rabayn lost the custody of Corfe castle. The main casualties of 1258 were the Poitevins. Their leaders, the Lusignans, who were perceived to have resisted the reformers, were driven out of England. Their fall impacted on their associates; Rabayn also left England and his lands were taken into the King’s hands.

1261 saw Henry III overthrowing the Provisions of Oxford and recovering his royal power. He replaced sheriffs with those he could trust. With the recovery of royal power, some of the Poitevins returned; on 14 April, Rabayn was granted permission to return to England and was told to come at all speed. Nine days later, he was remitted of the King’s rancour and his lands, which had been taken into the King’s hands on that account, were to be restored to him.

Serious concerns about disturbances in Wales and the March marked the beginning of 1263 and the King planned to go there with Rabayn as one of his party. During June a petition of the Barons was produced which sought the restitution of the Provisions of Oxford but with a new demand that ‘aliens should depart from the kingdom never further to return, save those whose stay the faithful men of the realm might with unanimous assent accept’. By July the King had agreed to the baronial demand and, following his consent to the Statute against the Aliens, the Lord Edward was forced to cede Windsor castle to the barons. The alien knights had moved there when they were removed from London. These knights were then escorted to the Channel coast and, according to one chronicler, ‘they returned to their native land’ and to another, they were allowed to ‘freely depart with their horses and arms after first swearing not to come back again without being sent for by the community‘. Was Rabayn among them? But by November the Windsor castle was back in royal hands.

As part of their submission to the arbitration of Louis IX of France, the Barons returned to the attack on the aliens, albeit linked to courtiers in general. When, in January 1264, Louis announced his judgement at Amiens, one knight with Henry III in France was Rabayn. But perhaps he sensed that trouble was coming as, in February, he obtained a licence to crenellate his manor at Upway, near Lyme Regis in Dorset.

It is not certain whether Rabayn was at the Battles of Lewes or Evesham but he held rebel’s lands as early as October 1265. Rabayn has been said to have joined the Lord Edward’s crusade but his presence as a royal charter witness during this period shows that he did not go. However, he was Constable of Corfe again from 1272 until 1280 and for a short while he regained Sherborne castle. When he died in 1285, some of his lands went to the alien Bezill family as his daughter married Mathias’s Bezill’s son, John.